Prize-Winning Books Not So "Good"?

Those who also follow The Overnight Bestseller blog will know that I wrote a post last week on a recent study undertaken by two academics. As reported in The Guardian, the study indicates that books winning such prestigious prizes as the Booker or National Book Award are more apt to receive negative reader reviews after the fact. Goodreads members will be interested to learn that the study is based on an analysis of almost 39,000 Goodreads reviews.

The authors of the study believe this phenomenon is the result of a mismatch between reader and novel: readers assume that a book is "good" because it has won an award, but what is "good" depends largely on individual taste. If the prize-winning book is not to a reader's taste, s/he may be disappointed, thus giving it a negative review.

For the full text of The Guardian article, please see http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014....